Zoe and the Tormented Tycoon (14 page)

What hidden strengths? Her mind mocked. She pulled off the broad straw hat with its trailing silk ribbons and replaced it on the hat stand with a dispirited sigh. Max stood in the doorway, his expression tense and even a little angry. Zoe felt like walking up to him and shaking him. Hard.

What about last night?
she wanted to demand. What about when he held her in his arms, when he kissed her as if he loved her—or perhaps just the memory of another woman, of Diane. Had they been lovers? Zoe wondered disconsolately, knowing she had no real right even to be jealous. Had something happened to Diane that made Max the man he was now, a man who looked as if the best of life had already happened, and yet whose nights held terrible dreams—memories—of what had come before?

Was
that
what he'd been going to tell her?

As the afternoon wore on, Max wasn't willing—or interested—in playing her games, and no matter how outrageously Zoe acted—laying a hand on the arm of a young sales clerk who couldn't even be out of college, batting her eyelashes and tilting her head with coquettish charm as he stammered a reply to one of her ridiculous questions— Max's inscrutable expression didn't change, and he didn't talk to her any more than he had to as he ferried her from one place to another.

By the end of the afternoon, Zoe felt defeated, drained, and yet all the more determined to get something from this man. It was, she thought despondently, like squeezing blood from a stone.

Did Max Monroe even have any blood? Was he a flesh-and-blood human being with a heart? For he certainly gave a good impression of not having one.

Yet then Zoe remembered how he'd held her last night, how he'd asked her not to go, how they'd danced, and the sweet memory of it all made her want to cry.

Had she ruined any chance she had with this man this morning? Could she get it back?

She dropped an outrageously expensive scarf she'd been pretending to admire and without even disguising the weariness and sorrow in her voice, she said, ‘Let's go back.'

And Max, she saw sadly, looked utterly relieved.

 

Back at the house he disappeared to his study, and Zoe was left alone. The sun was starting to set, light being leached from the sky, leaving it a colourless canvas hung above the sea.

Zoe made her way out to the beach, the sand cool and hard under her bare feet. She sat down on the shore, letting the water lap at her feet, too dispirited even to think, much less attempt to sort out the tangle of her feelings. She didn't know how long she sat there, staring blankly at the sea. It had grown dark, she realised, and a little cold. She thought of going back to the house, skulking through the empty rooms, looking for Max. And then what? Would they continue this awkward dance as they tried to navigate around all the unspoken words, regrets, memories?

Zoe didn't want to do it any more. She was tired of this, all of it—this uncertainty and fear and endless regret. She was, she realised with a surprising, wry little smile, tired of herself, and feeling sorry for herself.

She couldn't change Max. She couldn't make him feel things he wasn't ready to feel. She could only change herself, and she knew she wanted to. She was ready to. Zoe took a deep breath, drawing her knees tight to her chest. The moon had risen in the sky, slim and silver. A few stars twinkled faintly.

She wasn't going to feel sorry for herself any more. She wasn't going to think about all the things she didn't have, all the things she'd lost. Instead she was going to think about what she did have: a family who loved her, a father who had faltered not even for a moment in his support of her, a baby nestled in her womb who she already loved. Deeply. And Max.

She was thankful for Max. She loved Max, Zoe acknowledged with a dawning sense of rightness, even as the realisation shocked her. She loved him; there was no possibility, no maybe, about it. It was good, strong and true. She loved the man who held her in his arms, who needed her. The man who made her laugh over a plate of eggs, who danced with her, swaying softly to the music. Was it possible to love someone so quickly, so utterly? Could she trust her own feelings? More importantly, Zoe thought with a wave of trepidation, could she tell them to Max?

There was only one way to find out.

 

Max buried himself in work all afternoon, eager to occupy his mind and distance himself from the debacle of that afternoon. Going into town with Zoe had, he realised, confirmed every fear and suspicion about their possible union.

Impossible.

He could never give Zoe what she wanted.

He'd barely managed walking around town for a single afternoon; the entire affair had been an exercise in endurance, as gruelling as any challenge he'd faced in the air force. He hadn't realised just how much of his sight had already gone until he'd been thrust into an unfamiliar terrain, the sidewalk pavement uneven under his feet, each ritzy little boutique a foreign landscape with a hundred different obstacles to navigate.

He knew he should just tell Zoe; it was absurd to hide such a thing from her. Childish, even, as if he were a frightened little boy who had done something wrong and was vainly attempting to hide the implicating evidence.

He could have told her this morning, as he'd meant to; at the last moment his courage had failed him, and perhaps hers had as well, for he didn't think he'd imagined the flicker of relief in her eyes.

He could have told her about his past. She'd asked about Diane, and he had skirted away from the truth, not wanting to relive that terrible month, even though those days still haunted his dreams and made him wake up in a sweat of fear and regret.

He hadn't told her about the desperate cries he'd heard—and still heard—while he'd lain, gagged and blindfolded, utterly immobile.

The same immobility seemed poised to claim him now, for he surely felt as trapped, as tortured, as he had for the endless month he'd been held hostage.

‘A
PARTY
?'
Zoe looked up from the paperback she'd been half-heartedly attempting to read. She'd managed a page. ‘What party?'

Max, still standing in the doorway of the cosy library where she'd holed up for the morning, shrugged one shoulder. ‘An associate is having a party at his beach house. Some clients of mine will be attending, and I need to make an appearance.' Zoe didn't reply, and he continued, an edge to his voice, ‘Besides, I thought you'd enjoy such a thing.'

‘Did you?' Zoe asked quietly. Once, she would have. Once, she would have liked nothing more. She would have been bored without entertainment, attention and laughter. Yet now as she sat curled in the huge leather armchair that reminded her with a shaft of pain of Balfour Manor—and her father—she knew she wasn't that girl any more. She didn't want a party; she wanted Max. She wanted him to look at her and explain who Diane was, and why he had such terrible dreams. She wanted to ask him what he'd been going to say, and she wanted to tell him she was ready to hear. She wanted to tell him she loved him.

Yet ever since her self-revelation last night, she had not managed to find the opportunity. Max had been as closed
up as a box, his tone and face forbidding. Nothing about him encouraged her to say much of anything, much less bare her heart.

She was, Zoe knew with stab of self-loathing, still afraid.

‘Zoe?' Max asked, the edge to his voice more pronounced, sharp and bitter. ‘Don't you want to go?'

She glanced away from the window and the view of the sun high in an azure sky. Max's face was half cast in shadow, despite the early hour of the day.

Too much darkness, Zoe thought with a sorrowful weariness. Too many unspoken questions and regrets.
Hopes.
And she didn't know how—or if she had the strength—to break the cycle. She found a bright smile and pinned it on. ‘I'd like nothing better,' she said, and laughed, the cut-glass trill seeming to echo through the empty rooms.

 

The sun was just starting to set, sending lavender streaks across the sky and glazing the surface of the sound in violet, as they set out for the party.

Zoe had managed to find a dress that still fit; her clothes were becoming alarmingly tight. She wore a halter-style dress in cream silk shot through with gold thread, the material floating around her and ending a good six inches above her knee.

Max, Zoe noted sourly, had not noticed her dress, or the pains she'd taken with her hair or make-up. He made no comment at all. He'd simply jerked his head in something like a nod and walked stiffly to the waiting limo, his driver, Frank, attentive as always.

‘So who is this associate of yours?' Zoe asked, fiddling a bit nervously with the heavy gold hoops at her ears. She took in Max's perfectly cut trousers, his blindingly white shirt open at the throat. He'd developed a bit of a tan,
which made the contrast between his olive skin and the whitened line of livid flesh bisecting his face all the more obvious and startling. Funny, Zoe thought, how she'd come almost not to see the scar, the mark of unspoken suffering.

‘Just someone I do business with. I'm buying his business actually.'

‘He must not like that.'

Max shrugged. ‘Tough.'

Even though Max was seated next to her and she could inhale the musk of his cologne—of him—he still felt impossibly remote, as remote as he ever had. More. The thought of telling him she loved him seemed impossible, ludicrous, and yet still the words seemed to rise straight from her heart to clog her throat. She actually opened her mouth—a tiny sound came out, something halfway to a moan, and Max turned sharply.

“Are you ill?”

Zoe swallowed a wild gurgle of laughter.
Yes
, she thought,
I must be. To think I love you…and you can barely look at me now.
Max arched an eyebrow, impatient, and she shook her head.

By the time they arrived at the beach house, its wide, shingled veranda strung with lights, Zoe felt brittle and ready to break. Max hadn't said a word the entire trip; he hadn't even looked at her. Zoe felt as if she were in his company on sufferance, and the pathetic dreams she'd cherished of building some kind of life together—of loving him—seemed utterly absurd.

She turned away from him, straightening a little as they walked into the party, tossing her hair over her shoulders. The first interested and appreciative glance was like a balm to her starved soul, and Zoe found herself instinctively—childishly perhaps—reacting to it, just as she had when
they'd gone to the village. Recklessly she accepted a glass of wine and drained it in one defiant sip. Tonight, she decided savagely, she was going to have fun…like she always had.

 

She didn't have any fun at all. Even as she chatted and laughed and flirted her way across the room, working the party with an instinctive, inborn charm, she felt dead inside. She refused to look for Max, and yet her heart cried out, knowing he was near…and utterly oblivious.

Still, she persevered, her laughter taking on a ragged, desperate edge as she sought to lose herself in the party, in the woman she'd once been, and to forget Max's—and every other man's—rejection of her.

It didn't work. Even as she stood in the centre of the room, holding court with several young city types, she was conscious of Max in the corner, his expression closed, eyes flinty as he spoke with a business associate.

‘What did you say your last name was again?' A young man, all fake tan and too-white teeth, smiled at her as he asked the seemingly innocuous question. Zoe's smile froze on her face, making her realise how utterly fake it was.
She
was.

She took a sip of sparkling water. ‘I didn't actually,' she said sweetly. Was she imagining that hard glint in the man's eyes? She couldn't even remember his name, though they'd been supposedly laughing and chatting for the better part of an hour.

‘Balfour, wasn't it?' he suggested pleasantly. ‘You're one of the Balfour girls.' Zoe stilled, saying nothing, and he continued with only a touch of malice, ‘Or are you?'

The others gathered around shifted both in interest and unease, sensing the ugly undercurrent of the conversation.

The man waited, his smile turning to a sneer, and out of
the corner of her eye Zoe saw Max slip from the room, out onto the veranda that led to the beach.

She felt the flush of humiliation on her face, the sting of it in her soul. And yet even so, as she saw Max leave, she realised she didn't really care at all. She smiled at the man, at everyone. ‘I'm afraid I've forgotten your name,' she said sweetly, ‘but I don't have the time to learn it. Excuse me.' Depositing her empty glass on a tray, she left the room in search of the one person who really mattered.

Outside a breeze was blowing from the sea, cooling Zoe's heated cheeks. She picked her way across the uneven sand before discarding her heels in impatience, and made her way on bare, silent feet to the shore where Max stood, staring out at the ruffled surface of the water, a few sail boats and yachts bobbing in the distance, no more than pin-pricks of lights relieving the darkness.

Her heart still pounded, and her cheeks felt hot from the abandoned conversation, the ugly innuendo. Her arms crept around her body in a vain attempt to ward off the chill that was coming not from the sea breeze but from inside herself.

There would always be people like that man in there, or Holly Mabberly, or whoever else saw her as no more than gossip fodder, vicious amusement. She realised in that moment that she no longer cared what they thought; she cared only about the man standing in front of her, his shoulders bowed from the weight he carried—a weight she didn't understand. Yet she wanted to, wanted to reach out to him and tell him she understood…she needed to understand. Wanted, finally, to tell him she loved him.

Yet even now, standing in the sand with the breeze blowing her hair into tangles, she was afraid. Afraid that Max would reject her, that she couldn't be enough. That he would only see Zoe, the shallow socialite, and not Zoe,
the girl in the armchair. The real Zoe. The person she was, the person she could be.

You're stronger than you think.

She turned her unseeing gaze back to Max; he hadn't moved from the shore. His body was rigid, his head bowed, his whole position seeming strangely vulnerable. Slowly Zoe picked her way across the sand to be closer to him.

‘Max?'

‘You were having a good time in there,' Max remarked, his back still to her. His voice sounded terribly hard.

‘Actually, I wasn't,' Zoe replied after a pause. ‘I was just pretending I was.'

‘You told me that the first night,' Max said. He shoved his hands into his pockets and tilted his head to stare at the sky, now riddled with stars. ‘You told me you were bored, you were just better at pretending than I was.'

‘I've always been good at pretending,' Zoe agreed quietly. She felt as if she'd been pretending her whole life. She was ready to stop. ‘But I'm not sure I want to any more.'

‘Don't you?' The question sounded bleak rather than barbed, and then Max let out a shuddering sigh that was half laugh, half sob.

In that moment Zoe knew this wasn't about her. This was about Max. Her fear fell away as she walked towards him, a man who was so clearly hurting. She could see the mental anguish in every taut, harsh line of his body. He didn't move even as she stood behind him, tentatively raised her arms to touch his shoulders; his shirt was damp with sea spray.

‘Max,' she whispered, wanting the right words so desperately, yet unsure what they were. What he needed to hear. ‘What is it?'

She thought he wouldn't answer. He was silent for so
long, unmoving, his body tense under her hands, although at least he did not shrug her touch away.

‘I thought you didn't want to know,' he finally said, his voice so low Zoe almost didn't hear it. She realised with a chill just exactly what he was talking about. Yesterday morning, when she'd deflected the intensity of that moment in the kitchen, when he'd said her name in a way that both thrilled and frightened her. When she hadn't had the courage to hear what he might say. She still didn't know if she was brave enough, strong enough, but she wanted to be.

You're stronger than you think.

‘What is it?' she asked again, her voice a whisper. She pulled on his shoulders, wanting to touch him,
reach
him, but he didn't move or respond, and she might as well have been trying to tear down a brick wall with her bare hands. It felt as painful, as futile. Then, just when she felt despair creep in, knowing she was failing to reach him, he turned around, slowly, reluctantly, so they were facing each other, eye to eye.

In the starlight Zoe could barely make out his face; the moonlight slid over his scar, shadowed his eyes and cheekbones. Neither of them spoke, although she could hear the ragged tear of his breathing. Slowly, hesitantly, and yet with a growing certainty, she reached up to touch his face, her fingers brushing against the stubble, her thumb finding the fullness of his lip. She cupped his cheek with the palm of her hand as she had the other night, when he'd been racked by such a terrible dream. Its memory, Zoe thought, still held him now.

‘Max…' she whispered, the word no more than a breath, yet she still meant it as both a plea and promise. She wanted to know; she wanted him to tell her. ‘Tell me.'

He moved closer and brought his forehead to rest against hers, their faces close, their breath mingling. Her hands slid down his face, across his shoulders and found his; their fingers entwined.

A few strains of music could be heard from the open French doors, faint and haunting, and with a little laugh Max said, ‘We could almost be dancing.'

Tears stung Zoe's eyes. She'd never felt so achingly close to someone before, and yet still so agonisingly far away. ‘Then let's dance.'

He paused, his eyes closed. ‘I told you I didn't dance.'

‘You showed me you did,' Zoe whispered. ‘Remember?'

Max gave a little shake of his head. ‘This time I don't know the steps.'

She closed her eyes too and swayed her hips, stumbling a bit on the sand, her fingers still threaded with Max's. ‘Neither do I. We can just make them up. Create a whole new dance.'

To her surprise—and joy—she felt Max swaying against her, with her. ‘Do you think it would be any good?' he murmured against her hair.

‘I think it would be wonderful,' Zoe whispered. Her throat was so tight it was hard to get the words out. She felt Max's fingers tighten on hers. They swayed to the strains of music for a few wonderful minutes, moving almost as one, the waves lapping at their feet and the darkness all around them. Then Max gave her fingers a final squeeze and stepped away so quickly that Zoe was left half stumbling in solitude.

‘Max—'

‘I'm blind, Zoe.'

Her mouth opened, but no words came out. Her mind was spinning, struggling to keep up.
Blind.
She stared at
him, his face lit only by the moon, his expression so terribly bleak, and her heart ached. ‘How—' she began, even though she barely knew what question to frame.

‘Stargardt's disease. It's genetic, a gradual degeneration of the retina which leads to seriously impaired vision or, as will most likely be the case for me, complete blindness.' She still could only stare; there were too many questions, too many thoughts, and she knew by the rigidity of Max's stance that she had to speak carefully. ‘I had no idea I had the disease until my accident,' Max continued in a dispassionate tone. ‘I blacked out, you see—that's why I crashed my plane. Sudden blackouts can sometimes be a symptom of the disease, and my diagnosis was confirmed while I was in hospital a little over three months ago.'